About bamboo

 Bamboo is really cool.

    

There are over 1,600 species of bamboo around the world and it is found on every continent except Europe and Antarctica. Bamboo’s resilience, versatility, and unique ability to grow quickly and create complex root systems make it a vital species in its native ecosystem. It provides a habitat for biodiversity, reduces land degradation, stabilizes slopes, produces oxygen, absorbs heavy metals, sequesters carbon, and has huge number of uses - including replacing plastics, paper, and wood.

 

 

 

It is estimated that bamboo forests cover 35-50 million hectares of land. This provides shade, housing, and food for millions of plant, animal, and insect species. Soft bamboo shoots, stems, and leaves are the primary diet of the giant panda of China, the red panda of Nepal, and many lemurs in Madagascar. Mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants of Central Africa eat bamboo, and various forest rats and mice feed on its flowers.  

 

   

 

Shallow roots are one of the most distinguishable characteristics of bamboo. An extensive network of fibrous rhizomes in the topsoil can prevent erosion and control floods and landslides by holding particles together. It is incredibly resilient and capable of regenerating when the region is destroyed by wildfires or severe weather. These roots allow bamboo to take hold on steep and marginal soils, making them a good choice for reforesting on slopes. In many ways, bamboo can help stabilize and regrow land altered by the effects of changing climate, while also helping at the root cause.

 

 

 

Bamboo can rapidly sequester greenhouse gases in biomass and soil. It removes carbon from the air faster than almost any other plant species and can thrive on inhospitable degraded lands. A grove of bamboo also releases 35% more oxygen than an equivalent grouping of trees, providing clean air for all to breathe. Their root systems serve as a natural water purification filter and have a higher capacity for groundwater recharge. 

 

     

 

With the tensile strength of steel, hardness of oak, and extreme flexibility, bamboo has the potential to replace plastics, paper, and wood in all industries including retail, construction, and fashion.

 

 

The largest bamboo can grow over 30 m (98 ft) tall, and the fastest-growing species can grow 910 mm (36 in) within a 24-hour period. Full height is reached in one growing season or can be allowed to reach full stalk thickness in four to eight years. Once cut down, they will immediately begin regrowing which is in stark contrast to paper’s primary source, trees. Bamboo also has antibacterial properties, is 100% biodegradable, and when spun into fabric will outlast cotton in keeping shape, strength, and durability three times over.

 

  

 

Many household items are now being made out of bamboo, like toothbrushes, paper towels, sponges, single-use plates, and silverware as well as reusable water bottles and coffee cups. The possibilities of bamboo are endless and its cultivation and usefulness as a climate solution are now more important than ever. Bamboo can deliver the resources needed to restore habitats and create carbon sinks quickly. Among the solutions to the climate crisis, bamboo protection and cultivation is one of the most evident. 

  

You know now that bamboo is great because of quality (strenth and flexibility) of its fibers. If you wish to learn what exactly fiber is and how big bamboo fibre can be then look at this:

 

 

For our Raw9tech skipoles we use a species of bamboo called Pseudosasa amabilis a.k.a. Tonkin.